My experience is similar to everyone elses. I released one game on iOS and Android and had a really hard time exporting it. Ended up using Intel XDK and although the process was an absolute mess I ended up getting it out on both stores after about a month of trial and error. Actually had to pay someone to help me get FB to work as a mobile app.

Conclusion - The lack of an in-built exporter is the single biggest weakness of Construct 2 and I can absolutely see how it could be a complete show-stopper for new developers trying to build their game using C2.

Mega Game Studios is a tiny independent game studio run from our apartment in Melbourne, Australia. We're not quite sure what we do yet but we think it has something to do with apps, board games and plush toys.

I've only released one game for Android and I used xdk. It was a very simple game, used the built in Admob plugin and cranberry Google Play Services plugin for leader boards. First question everyone asked is why it runs so poorly...

Construct 2 is great software, I love how quickly I can put something together, however, don't expect to make any decently performing mobile games because of the wrapper situation. And the massive apk size, it's so unprofessional!I bought the Gamemaker humble bundle and am now using that, still love prototyping with C2 though. Perhaps I will attempt an export with Cocoon IO and see if I can get their plugins to work.

I believe Scirra should provide a lot more built in plugins, especially for monetization and social services. But the nature of it being html5 means you'll always have export and 3rd party wrapper issues.

@llfstudios so you stick to using strictly what CIO supports.. how has it been? did you implement everything? IAP? Ads? etc? I certainly like the idea of a single plugin to do all that.. any problems with locking orientation? that's something that other devs (and myself) have experienced at times. Rewarded video, has anyone found a service that works with Cocoon IO? This is a pretty hot option for developers right now and is hard to ignore / leave out of a modern F2P game.

@donkeyspaceman yea it's rough. i haven't worked out google play or game center at this time. That would be great. To me it's not just figuring something out the first time. the really challenging part to me is that it seems like things coming in and out of working. Having a tutorial that's current would be super welcome!

@BasicTribe while I don't think Ashley's totally misleading, it's just something I think could be given more attention too. Publishing to Android for example with XDK is pretty painless these days. However IF you want to make money with it.. that's where things break down and that's the part that needs work IMHO. It's not just getting a game on a phone, it's all the vital things needed to make a game that can generate revenue. I feel your frustration though and I hope that a conversation like this could help us expose an important need in the community. I would still like to see more people reply though with their experiences.

I'm a huge fan (like all of us here) of C2 and I am looking forward to C3 (finally running on mac without emulation or bootcamp!) but I just feel like there needs to be more attention / support for the publishing option. I don't know if Scirra will ever endorse Cocoon anything again since they had a pretty rough relationship it seemed with the cocoon.js stuff.. IO takes advantage of Cordova as I understand and it has other benefits as well. I'd be willing to go that route, I just think there needs to be some established standards coming from Scirra officially so we can all focus on the same platform and support each other knowing that C2 offers some guarantee that x y and z plugins work and specific tutorials for those plugins with the specified platform C2 officially supports.

Again I'm not saying that this declaration means other export options are deemed useless.. some developers may want to keep using whatever they like and if they have javascript experience may be able to make things work for them that average C2 developers are unable to do. I'm one of the non-programming fans so I looking for a stable solution.

I exported to google play with cocoon.io. It took some trial and error but everything seems to be working well and performance is pretty good too. Using canvas+ only added 6 mb to my cordova install size so my game ended up only being 10mb!

@Big Infinity that's pretty awesome. is there a good (current) tutorial you used to get it launched? Was the 6mb only for iOS or was it for Android as well? I have a project that's android only for a client and they don't even need any monetization features so it's a straight export, but crosswalk makes the game a bit bloated.. +19mb! I'd be willing to revisit Cocoon IO.. though I do not know if the client would expect the splash screen to be cocoon io free.. When I used Cocoon IO I was getting all kinds of plugin related errors but then after i removed all the plugins i still got errors so I gave up and went back to XDK.

@Vegamon007 yes this is why we need some kind of decision from Scirra to help us all focus our energy in one direction. Ashley is very aware of the mobile / html5 scene and I know that if he were to make a decision it would be one we could all get behind. Ultimately we want something that works best for as many people as possible.

@mercedescolomar Glad to year you had good results. I'd like to know the game you have because while I'm not saying my games are overly complex, I've found performance pretty good with crosswalk (only the bloatedYea but I wonder... since Cordova is open source, what would be superior is for Scirra to actually incorporate Cordova INTO Construct 2! If the actual service is part of the engine.. then Ashley has full control over which version.. what updates and changes are needed.

Happier more productive developers will mean more customers and sales.. Before I was using C2.. I used GameSalad and while it is VERY sandboxish.. I have to admit i was getting pretty efficient at build apps with it and publishing because everything was integrated. Sure it had some headaches at times, but overall I really miss being able spend more time on the game and less on publishing. This seems like a viable option to explore.. eliminate the need for any 3rd party platform.

For iOS, I tried Adobe Phonegap Build (build.phonegap.com) at first. I thought I saw that it is recommended somewhere ... But maybe I'm wrong. So, I build with Intel XDK, and yes, I had some problems with certificates at first, too, but it's ok now. The main problem is still that I can't test on my phone before published to App Store. Also, it ignores Full Screen and Hide Status Bar preferences. I hope I'll be successful with those plugins to hide it.

@part12studios I only used the cocoon ads and cocoon share plugins. Right now I have no need for IAP plugins and all that. But the experience has been WAY BETTER than xdk.

I use admob ads for banner and interstitials. You also can use third party plugins and install them to cocoon such as a cranberry plugin. I know cranberry has some rewarded video plugins so you can use those.

No problems at all with screen lock and status bar does not show when you put it in full screen (unlike xdk).

The downside to cocoon is the $500 splash screen removal for each project so if you care about that it would be an issue. You can however request to have a premium type of account where you basically get everything for free. More info here https://cocoon.io/pricing

Overall, I would say you get what you pay for. Construct 2 to me is the cheapest to make games compared to GameSalad, Stencyl, Unity, Buildbox, (all these basically have their own exporter) etc. But with C2 it's basically learning another big step to export.